Trusting yourself and the process
Episode 13 of the Teams Transformed Podcast
Teams Transformed is the podcast for courageous coaches, curious leaders, and anyone passionate about unlocking the true power of teams. Hosted by TCS Founder and Senior Faculty Georgina Woudstra and Allard De Jong, listen to explore transformational insights on how to coach teams with presence, depth, and emergence, diving into not just the tools, but the art of team coaching itself.
About this Episode
In this compelling episode of Teams Transformed, Georgina and Allard welcome Mary Morand, an experienced team coach and former senior corporate leader, to explore moments of emergence through a real, unfiltered story from her practice. Moving beyond theory, Mary shares what happened when a team’s light-hearted humour was masking deeper tension, and how an unexpected intervention from a team member shifted everything.
Together, they explore how coaches create the conditions for emergence without controlling it, how trust and psychological safety develop over time, and why self-management is one of the most important skills a team coach can cultivate. Through candid reflection and vulnerable insights, Mary illustrates how emergence often arises not from the coach doing more, but from the coach having the patience and courage to do less, and to let the team step into its own agency.
About our guest
Mary Morand is described by clients as deeply grounded, meeting teams where they are and flexing with what emerges. She creates the conditions for learning and insight that enable growth. With thirty years of corporate leadership experience, Mary understands first-hand the challenges of building effective teams while delivering results.
Mary previously served as a Director of Leadership Development and Talent Management, a Chief Learning Officer, and a Director of Marketing. She also held multiple VP and SVP roles, including leading a start-up talent advisory business in executive search. This blend of executive, commercial, and development leadership gives her a uniquely practical and human perspective on team effectiveness.
Key Themes Explored
When Humour Hides the Real Conversation
Mary describes a team that used constant humour to keep things light and to avoid addressing underlying conflict. When she named this pattern, she met resistance. Later in the same session, a team member unexpectedly invited everyone to take a deep breath together. That small embodied pause changed the emotional field in the room and opened the door to a more honest conversation about how they were working together.
Emergence Comes From the Team
One of the most powerful aspects of the story is that the breakthrough did not come from the coach. A team member stepped in and influenced the group. Mary reflects on how this moment signalled the team claiming its own agency, recognising they didn’t need to wait for the coach to shift the dynamic. When teams discover this for themselves, their capacity for self-correction grows exponentially.
Creating Conditions Over Time
Mary emphasises that this moment didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of multiple sessions spent co-creating the environment , building trust, psychological safety, and a balance of high support and high challenge. Emergence, she notes, often rests on slow, patient groundwork rather than dramatic interventions.
The Coach’s Inner Work
A candid part of the conversation centres on Mary’s self-awareness. She shares her personal tendency to want to be “right” and how she consciously works to let go of that impulse in service of the team. Managing one’s internal reactions, especially when facing resistance, is essential to staying present and not over-controlling the process.
Courage, Patience, and Trusting the Process
Mary speaks about courage not as bold action, but as restraint: allowing space, trusting that what needs to surface will surface, and remembering that “it’s all data.” Her advice to newer team coaches is to practice emergence gradually, leaving small pockets of unstructured space rather than abandoning all structure at once. Over time, confidence grows through experience.
Modelling the Way of Being
The episode also highlights how coaches model the relational behaviours they invite from teams , authenticity, disagreement without rupture, and not needing to have all the answers. Teams learn as much from how coaches show up with each other as from any formal intervention.
Key takeaways
🎭 Humour Can Be a Shield: Lightness in teams can sometimes mask tension. Naming patterns gently can plant seeds, even if resistance shows up first.
🌬️ Small Interventions, Big Shifts: A single shared breath changed the emotional tone of the whole team and opened a new level of honesty.
🤝 Agency Belongs to the Team: Breakthroughs are most powerful when they come from team members themselves rather than from the coach.
🧠 Self-Awareness Is Core Practice: Noticing your own triggers , like the need to be right , helps you stay in service of the team rather than your ego.
⏳ Emergence Needs Patience: Trust and safety are built over time. The conditions for transformation are often slow-grown.
🧭 It’s All Data: Every reaction, including resistance, provides information that can guide the next step.
🎒 Start Small With Emergence: You don’t have to throw away structure. Leave pockets of open space and build your confidence gradually.
🪞 Model the Work: Teams learn by watching how coaches relate, disagree, and stay authentic in real time.
Why listen?
This episode offers a grounded, human look at what emergence really looks like in practice , not dramatic breakthroughs, but subtle shifts that grow from trust, patience, and presence. Mary’s story reminds us that coaches don’t create change alone; they create the conditions where teams discover their own capacity.
Listeners will gain insight into the inner discipline of team coaching, the courage required to hold back rather than step in, and the long-term impact of helping teams find their own agency. It’s an honest and reassuring conversation for both new and experienced practitioners navigating the art of emergence.
About your hosts
Georgina Woudstra is the Founder and Senior Faculty of Team Coaching Studio, an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) with over 20 years of experience. Georgina is recognised globally as one of the leading lights in team coaching and was among the first coaches to receive ICF's Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching.
Allard De Jong is a seasoned leadership development expert with two decades of experience solving organisational 'people problems' and accelerating leadership development. He brings a unique perspective on transformative inquiry and divergent thinking to team coaching practice.
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